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1061 6?5 AVIAl 



BAPTISM 



A Discussion of tub "Words 



"Buried with Christ in Baptism" 



WILLIAM G. WILLIAMS, LL.B. 

Professor of the Greek Language and Literature in 
the Ohio Wesleyan University 



CINCINlSrATI : JENNINGS & PYE 
NEW YORK : EATON & MAINS 



t V^Dln 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

MAY. 29 1901 

Copyright entry 

CLASS O^XXc. N». 

COPY B. 






COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY 
THE WESTERN METH- 
ODIST BOOK CONCERN. 



PREFACE. 



Fkequent inquiries have come to me, as 
a teacher of the Greek Testament, for an 
explanation of the word '^laptis^n^'^'^ and for 
some exegesis of certain passages of the New 
Testament in which this word is found. 
The most noted of these passages are the 
ones in the sixth chapter of Romans, and 
the second chapter of Colossians, containing 
the words, ''Buried with Christ in Baptism." 
I think that I may serve the cause of truth, 
as I understand it, by a discussion of these 



My class work has led me to touch only 

on the philological and the exegetical phases 

of this subject. And it answers my present 

purpose to discuss these passages in these 

3 



4 Preface. 

two aspects. If this discussion is conclu- 
sive, other questions cease to have much 
importance. 

The philological investigation of the word 
baptize^ in Part I, follows the old trend, 
though it is not a copy of the old books. 
The exegesis of the word buried^ in Part II, 
is newer. It is not always in the words of 
the fathers ; but I hope it may meet the ap- 
proval of the sons. I believe it is in accord 
with the teachings of the Master, and of his 
great apostle ; it magnifies and glorifies the 
gospel of Christ ; and (which is of much less 
moment) it is ^'orthodox." 

I oppose what seems to me to be errone- 
ous ; yet I hope that those who differ from 
the views here presented may read the dis- 
cussion without offense, if not with convic- 
tion. Are we not all of one body, and one 
spirit^ of one Lord, one faith, one baptism? 
Delaware, Ohio, 

February 25, 1901. 



BUEIED WITH CHRIST IN 
BAPTISM. 



These words are found twice in the Au- 
thorized Translation of Paul's Epistles; as 
follows : 

Eomans vi: — ^'3. Know ye not that so 
many of us as were baptized into Jesus 
Christ were baptized into his death ? 
4. Therefore we are litried with Mm by 
iaptism into death : that like as Christ was 
raised up from the dead by the glory of the 
Father, even so we also should walk in new- 
ness of life. 5. For if we have been planted 
together in the likeness of his death, we shall 
be also in the likeness of his resurrection." 

Colossians ii: — ''8. Beware lest any man 
5 



6 Baptism. 

spoil you. . . . Ye are complete in him. . . . 
11. in whom also ye are circumcised with 
the circumcision made without hands, by 
the circumcision of Christ: 12. iuried with 
him in iaptism^ wherein also ye are risen 
with him through the faith." 

These words of the old translation, ''bur- 
ied with him in baptism," wrested from 

Favorite their grammatical and logical 
words With connection, and so from their 

immersion- ^ 

ists. true meaning, are favorite words 
with immersionist Churches. They are in- 
scribed on their baptisteries; are recited 
with unction in the administration of the 
initiatory sacrament ; and are always quoted 
by immersionists with peculiar satisfaction 
as conclusive in the debate on the form of 
the baptismal rite. I think that the mass 
of the people in these denominations, and 
even their professed scholars, understand 
these words as meaning "immersed with 
Christ in water ;" and they are not very pa- 
tient with the obtuseness, or the willfulness, 



Buried with Christ. 7 

that keeps the rest of Christendom from ac- 
ceding to this interpretation. Their first 
peremptory condition of fellowship with us 
is, that we ''meet them at the baptistery." 

I propose to inquire into the Scriptural 
basis of this interpretation: I shall try to 
ascertain the meaning of the two leading 
words, severally, in this phrase, '^Buried in 
Baptism;" and thus to develop the apostle's 
thought in the sentences in which they 
stand. 

What, then, is the apostle's meaning in 
these passages ? From the twice-expressed 
words, " Buried with him by [or, in] bap- 
tism," the commentators have generally 
assumed that the apostle thought of baptism 
as an immersion with Christ ; and they fancy 
that this view is confirmed further by the 
apostle's figure in the fifth verse : '' We have 
been planted together in the likeness of his 
death." But in this last verse, the apostle's 
own words in the Greek can not bear such a 
meaning. In the Eevised, the translation 



8 Baptism. 

of the verb is changed for the better, though 
that of the preposition for the worse: *' We 
have hecome united with Mm by the like- 
ness of his death." Yet, though the Ee- 
visers abandon the figure of being planted 
with him^ they seem still, by retaining the 
word ''likeness,'^ to be blindly groping after 
an imaginary resemblance in the form of 
our baptism to the burial of the Lord, as if 
this burial were a burial in water. Both 
translations, the Authorized and the Ee- 
vised, are erroneous ; the sense is not only 
far-fetched, it is absolutely incomprehensi- 
ble. But when we recall the apostle's words 
to their proper meaning, and translate the 
passage without the bias of immersionist 
preconceptions, we reach, in the language 
thus found, a logical coherence, a nobleness 
of meaning, a self-evidencing consistency, 
that brings it into glorious harmony with 
the gospel of grace to all the world. 

The following translation correctly re- 
produces the meaning of both passages: 



Buried with Christ. 9 

Eomans vi: — ^'3. Do you not know that 
all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus 
were baptized into his death? correct 

4. We were buried [laid in the translation. 
grave], therefore, with him, through the 
[rite of] baptism into his [vicarious] death ; 
that just as Christ was raised from the dead 
through the glory of the Father, so we also 
may walk in renewal [a fresh grant] of life. 

5. For if we have become united with him 
in the sameness with his death, we shall be 
united with him in the sameness also with 
his resurrection." 

Colossians ii : — '^8. Beware lest any [ad- 
herent of circumcision] rob you [of your 
faith in Christ]. 10. Because in him [not 
in Moses], ye are complete [needing nothing 
from Judaism], ... 11. in whom also ye 
were circumcised with a circumcision not 
made with hands [that is, physical], with 
the circumcision of Christ [in the heart], 
12. having been buried [laid in the grave] 
with him, in your baptism; in which [rite 



10 Baptism. 

of baptism] also ye were raised with him 
through the faith." 

I accompany this translation with a few 
brief exegetical notes, to justify the changes 
here made. Some of these points will be 
quite fully developed and established in the 
subsequent discussion. 

1. The word '' buried " does not mean im- 
mersed, but, simply, laid in the grave in 
which Christ was laid. 

2» ''Baptism" does not mean the water, or 
the baptistery, in which the immersionists 
hold that we were buried, but, simply, the 
rite or sacrament, through (or in) virtue of 
which we were constructively buried with 
Christ. 

3. The phrase ''through the baptism," 
does not express the agent or instrumen- 
tality, by which we were buried, but sig- 
nifies only the mode of our union with 
Christ, the rite^ 'through virtue of which" 
or "by the right of which," we were con- 
ceptually buried with him. 



Buried with Christ. 1 1 

4. The word ''glory" is a Hebraism for 
power. While the word power does not 
translate the Greek word, it expresses the 
meaning of the passage. See 2 Cor. xiii, 4. 

5. ''Walk" means "to go our way," "to 
continue our career," "to have our life ex- 
tended to us on new terms." 

6. "Eenewal," does not express d^ moral 
change, a regeneration of our being, but a 
legal reinvestiture with the life which was 
once forfeited. 

7. The Greek word which the old trans- 
lations give as "likeness," means sameness; 
that is '''such a death as his." The word 
"likeness" gives no appropriate or even in- 
telligible sense to the passages in which it is 
found. But the verse becomes both appro- 
priate and intelligible if it reads : " We have 
become united with him in the sameness 
with his death, and shall be united with him 
in the sameness with his resurrection." We 
died the same death as Christ, and arose 
with the same resurrection. This word 



12 Baptism. 

makes the needed sense also in the other 
places where Paul uses it. For example : 
^' Death reigned even over those who sinned 
not after the sameness with Adam's trans- 
gression." (Rom. V, 14.) The apostle's 
thought here is, that though man sinned 
Uhe Adam, it was not with the same specific 
sin. Again, '' God sent his Son in the same- 
ness with sinful flesh, and for sin." (Rom. 
viii, 3.) That is, Christ became m^^, "of 
his flesh and bones ; " not as a later heresy, 
Docetism, taught, a phantom, in the likeness 
of man. 

Nevertheless the apostle's words "We were 

buried with him," seem to the immersionists 

, , ^ to be sififnificant of the form of 

Immerslonlst ^ 

interpreta- baptism, by themsclvcs alone, 
*'*'"• without the help of the fifth 
verse; and to express beyond doubt that 
baptism was by immersion. Nor do those 
who favor this interpretation lack a large 
and imposing array of great names for this 
view. If such a point as this could be set- 



BUEIED WITH ChEIST. 13 

tied by weight of authority outside of the 
Bible, it might seem that this debate is 
closed. Almost all the great exegetes, from 
the days of Chrysostom down, have declared 
that the word ^'buried" here shows, "5y 
allusion^^^ that, in Paul's conception, baptism 
was by immersion. I quote some of these 
opinions to show the general drift of inter- 
pretation among these commentators ; many 
of whom, however, are far from conceding 
that immersion is obligatory on the Church. 
In giving these quotations, I do not here 
pause to attempt a refutation of the views 
expressed, nor to animadvert upon the silli- 
ness of some of the sayings ; as, for instance, 
those of Tillotson, Chalmers, and Clarke. 

Archbishop Tillotson {Episcopalian) : 
"Anciently those who were baptized were 
immersed and buried in the water to repre- 
sent their death to sin ; and then did rise 
up out of the water to signify their entrance 
upon a new life. And to these customs the 
apostle here alludes." 



14 Baptism. 

Doddridge {Dissenter): ''It seems the 
part of candor to confess that here is an al- 
lusion to the manner of baptism by immer- 
sion." 

Wesley {Methodist): ''Alluding to the 
ancient manner of baptism by immersion.'^ 

Chalmers {Scottish Free Church): "The 
prevalent style of administration in the 
apostle's days was by an actual submersion 
of the whole body under water. Jesus 
Christ underwent this sort of baptism by an 
mmersion under the surface of the ground, 
whence he soon emerged again by his resur- 
rection. We, by being baptized into his 
death, are conceived to have made a similar 
translation : in the act of descending under 
the water of baptism, to have resigned the 
old life; and in the act of ascending, to 
emerge into a second or new life." 

Adam Clarice {British Wesley an): "It is 
probable that the apostle here alludes to 
the mode of administering baptism by im- 
mersion; the whole body being put under 



Buried with Christ. 15 

the water, which seemed to say, The man is 
drowned, is dead; and when he came up 
out of the water, he seemed to have a resur- 
rection to life : The man is risen again, he 
is alive." 

Conyieare and Hoioson {Episcopalian) : 
" This passage can not be understood unless 
it be borne in mind that the primitive bap- 
tism was by immersion." 

Barnes {Presbyterian) : ''It is altogether 
probable that the apostle in this place had 
allusion to the custom of baptizing by im- 
mersion." 

Beet {British Wesley an) : ''Immersion 
was the usual form of baptism. And we 
can not doubt that to this Paul refers. 
Even the form of admission to the Church 
sets forth a spiritual burial and resurrec- 
tion." 

Conant {Baptist) : " The language is so 
explicit, and the reference is so obvious, that 
all Christian antiquity understood by it an 
allusion to the symbolic significance of the 



16 Baptism. 

rite of immersion. Almost all modern 
scholars are of the same opinion. The few 
attempts to set aside this obvious view have 
made little impression, and require no refu- 
tation/' 

It seems presumptuous (especially in the 
face of the last curt remark) to dissent 
Correct from these grave and venerable 
opinion, authorities, to which many more 
of the same tenor could be added. Yet 
great names, and many of them, have no 
intrinsic weight in argument. They merely 
show the drift of opinion, often begotten of 
prejudice, and often, as in this interpreta- 
tion, of mere ignorance. And notwith- 
standing this array of great and sober 
authorities to the contrary, I venture to 
say, and I say it deliberately and with all 
confidence in the conclusion which I have 
here reached, that Paul neither says nor im- 
plies anything of the kind that they attrib- 
ute to him. I hope and believe that I shall 
be able to carry my readers with me in spite 



Buried with Christ. 17 

of these authorities, whose unsupported 
opinions are yet of no authority whatever 
against the demonstrable meaning of Paul's 
words and Paulas thoughts. There is in the 
apostle's words here no allusion whatever to 
immersion as the apostolic mode of baptism. 
The sense of the passage as a whole, as well 
as of the several words, does not hinge in 
the slightest degree on the mode of baptism, 
scarcely on the fact of a baptism. I am 
sure, were we to drop all the apostle's verbal 
reference to baptism, we should lose little 
from the outer substance, and nothing at 
all from the evangelical meaning and teach- 
ing, of this passage. It is easy to see why 
Paul should mention baptism. Baptism 
was the standing rite in the Church signifi- 
cant of initiation into Christ ; and so a men- 
tion of it came into good play in his mar- 
velous account of our oneness with Christ. 
But he could have uttered all his thought in 
this direction, without naming the baptism : 

''Do ye not know that all we who have 
2 



18 Baptism. 

become members of Christ's body, shared 
in his vicarious death ? We were buried 
[laid in the grave], therefore, with him, 
through our sharing in his death." And 
thus the words of the text are applicable 
and explicable, not to the teaching of im- 
mersion, but in the line of an entirely dif- 
ferent and very much grander theme and 
thought. 

We now proceed with the discussion, first, 
of the word Baptize; and, second, of the 
word Buried. 



PART I. 

BAPTIZE. 

The interpreters, who, like the authori- 
ties just quoted, declare that the primitive 
Christian baptism was by im- ivieaning of 
mersion, have invented their "Baptize." 
facts. They invented the facts to suit their 
erroneous explanation of the word luried. 
The usage of the Apostolic Church was pre- 
cisely the same as that of the Jews for cen- 
turies before the Christian era, the same as 
that of the larger part of the Christian 
Church for all the centuries since, and the 
same as that of the Pedo-baptist Churches 
in the present century: any ritual applica- 
tion of water met all the requirements of 
the case. We may concede that Apostolic 
baptism was possibly administered some- 
19 



20 Baptism. 

times by immersion, though this is in 
doubt; yet certainly it was also adminis- 
tered by sprinkling, or pouring, and this is 
Apostolic i^ot in doubt. The cumulative 
Baptism, evidence for this conclusion, 
from Scripture and from history, long ago 
amounted to almost a demonstration. But 
if not thus settled before, the recent ''find " 
of '' The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles " 
puts it now beyond gainsaying. This book 
which was recovered at Constantinople, in 
1884, dates certainly as early as the year 
120; and some critics think that it is even 
earlier than the year 90, the earliest date of 
the Gospel by St. John. In chapter vii, of 
"The Teaching," it says: ''Baptize into 
the name [profession] of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living 
water [that is running water: compare 
John iv, 10]. But if thou have not living 
water, [going] unto other water [a stand- 
ing pool], baptize; but if thou canst not in 
cold [water], then in warm. But if thou 



Buried with Christ. 21 

have neither [of these out-of-door oppor- 
tunities], pour water upon the head thrice^ 
into the name of Father and Son and Holy 
Spirit." The baptism here enjoined, in the 
first two alternatives, of "living water," or 
of "other water," is not to be explained on 
the assumption that it was done by immer- 
sion, but that, like the baptism of the Jews, 
and of the Baptist, and of the apostles, it 
was done in the open air, in natural sup- 
plies of pure water. In Palestine, such 
natural opportunities were not everywhere 
accessible for this purpose. The third al- 
ternative of pouring water upon the head, 
from the hand or from a vessel, was then 
offered for their wants; and this baptism, 
too, was probably in the open air. But bap- 
tism by pouring may equally have been the 
usage by the side of the running brook, 
or the standing pool. For example, in 
Christ's own town of Nazareth, there was 
no supply of water for immersion, and there 
was none at Sychar, in Samaria, near to 



22 Baptism. 

Jacob's well. The circumstances make it 
probable that Philip baptized the eunuch 
from a pool by the side of the way, where 
certainly there is now no running water;'" 
and Peter baptized Cornelius in the house, 
with " the water " f brought in a cup for the 
occasion. 

The testimony of this book is absolutely 
conclusive to this as a common, if not the 
invariable, apostolical usage. Yet undoubt- 
edly, not long afterwards in the history of 
the Church, literal immersion was practiced, 
if it did not, for a while, displace the earlier 



*And at that season (April, after the Passover, Acts 
viii, 27), the rains had ceased, and the country was dry, 
except for occasional pools. It was one such chance 
pool that suggested to the eunuch the opportunity for 
baptism. The literal translation implies that the 
water was found by accident, and that it could not 
have been sufficient for an immersion. "As they were 
going along the road ["this is desert;"] they came to 
some water; and the eunuch [as if surprised] said, Look^ 
ivater! what hinders me from being baptized?" (Acts 
viii, 36.) 

f'Oan any one forbid the water ^ that these should be 
baptized, who received the Holy Spirit, as also we?" 
(Acts X, 47. ) 



BuKiED WITH Christ. 23 

and simpler rite of pouring or sprinkling. 
But this change in form, which did not in the 
least change the nature or the significance 
of the initiatory rite, can be accounted for 
by the tendency among unspiritual men to 
exaggerate and exalt the external and inci- 
dental features of the rite into essential and 
obligatory matters. The Greek Church has 
retained this extravagant mode of adminis- 
tration, along with many other mummeries : 
the Catholic Church soon returned to the 
simple form of baptizing by pouring or 
sprinkling ; though it also has added to the 
simplicity of the apostolical rite many fan- 
tastic mummeries of a ritualistic character. 
I think that the facts in regard to the 
meaning and the history and the Scriptural 
usage of the word haptism can ^^ ^^^ ^^ 
be made clear to the under- the word 
standing and the convictions of b^p**^^'" 
men. It has often been asserted, with all 
the confidence, even with the effrontery, of 
ignorance, that the word baptism is, and has 



24 Baptism. 

always been, univocalj that is, that the word 
had, and has, but one meaning; that, in 
the classic Greek in which it was first used, 
this word had the very specific modal mean- 
ing of immersion ; and that this meaning, 
alone, was continued in the Greek Testa- 
ment. If this be so, then beyond debate, 
the ancient mode of administering this 
Christian rite was by immersion. Though, 
even then, it does not follow that we should 
therefore practice the same mode now. Such 
is the judgment of many learned author- 
ities whom we have quoted above. They 
concede (erroneously, however,) that once 
baptism was by immersion; but they do 
not hold that it is therefore obligatory 
now upon the Church. Circumstances of 
place, or social proprieties, or of Christian 
liberty, may justify a change (though not, 
as the Quakers think, an abolishment), in a 
matter of ecclesiastical ceremony which 
does not touch the essentials of the faith. 
Such a change has certainly occurred in the 



BuKiED WITH Christ. 25 

minutiae of the celebration of the Lord's 
Supper ; and possibly such a change in the 
minuti^ of this sacrament of baptism would 
not be an offense to make the angels weep, 
and would not cry to heaven for condemna- 
tion, or even for exclusion from the Lord's 
table. But in fact no change has taken 
place in the form of administration of 
Christian baptism. The Church iegan with 
sprinhling; and then lapsed for a time into 
the gross ritualism of immersion; but now 
has come back to the ancient and simple 
form in which the apostles baptized their 
converts. 

The history of the Greek verb laptize^ or 
the noun iaptism^ is as well known as that 
of any other word in either the classic use 
Greek or the English language, of "Baptize.** 
The Biblical critics, but especially Doctor 
Conant, a distinguished Baptist scholar, have 
found 168 instances of this word baptize in 
the Greek classics, and very many instances 
in the early Greek ecclesiastical writers. 



26 Baptism. 

And there are 80 instances of the word in 
the Greek Testament. The examples from 
the classics clearly establish the sense, or 
senses, of the word in Greek literature; and 
the examples in the New Testament just as 
clearly establish the meaning, but a very 
different meaning of the word, in Christian 
literature. In 86 of the classic examples 
(we accept Doctor Conant's showing as ap- 
proximately correct), the word means to 
immerse physically ; that is, to put the object 
under the element, the fluid remaining sta- 
tionary, and the object being moved, or 
brought into it; and in 82 examples the 
word means to overwhelm the object, that is 
to pour the element over it, the object re- 
maining stationary, and the fluid being 
moved to it, or poured over it. These ex- 
amples show that the Greek word was not, 
as so often asserted, univocal, expressive of 
one particular mode of action, but that it 
had two distinct meanings, expressive of 
two distinct modes of physical action. But, 



Buried with Christ. 37 

besides these expressions of definite physical 
action, the word was sometimes used meta- 
phorically, when there was no actual phys- 
ical action. These meanings are not very 
far apart ; yet they are distinct. The word 
was not univocal in classic literature; but 
above all, it did not come into use in the 
Greek Testament, in either of the modal 
senses of the classic word expressive of a 
physical immersion, or of a submersion, but 
as a ritual or sacramental term, without ex- 
pressing any definite physical action, and 
with a very different content. 

We may safely accept the showing given 
by classic scholars in regard to the classic 
meaning of the word. It meant physical 
immersion or submersion ; and though some- 
times used metaphorically, it was never used 
by the classic writers in a ritual sense. This 
is altogether a later Jewish and New Testa- 
ment usage. The claim sometimes put 
forth by ill-informed theologians, and found 
in certain antiquated lexicons of the Greek 



28 Baptism. 

language, that in the classics, the word 
"baptize" sometimes meant sprinhle^ or any- 
thing else than immerse, is erroneous, and 
misleading in the search after the truth. 
No such example has been found. And 
even in New Testament Greek, also, the 
word never, of itself, means sprinMe; but 
on the other hand it does not mean immerse. 
^ ^ In the New Testament, it is not 

New Testa- ^ ' 

ment use of a word of mode, as it was in the 
the word, classics; but of rite. Our con- 
tention is that the word baptize, once ex- 
clusively modal, with the specific sense of 
immerse (or of submerse) , has lost in the New 
Testament all modal significance, and ex- 
presses only a ritual, or ceremonial, applica- 
tion of water — a ritual application, which 
may be administered in any form whatever, 
by immersion, or pouring, or sprinkling; 
but which, among the Jews, long before the 
time of Christ, was always administered iy 
sprinkling; and this usage was continued by 
the Baptist and by the apostles. But it is 



Buried with Christ. 29 

false philology and false exegesis to hold 
that the word can be translated ^^ sprinlcW^ 
or ^'-poury 

Here is the verbal fallacy with which the 
immersionists deceive themselves, and some- 
times deceive others. They hold, 
correctly, that the word baptize 
in the classics meant immerse (or submerse) ; 
and they think that they are therefore justi- 
fied in explaining the word in the New Tes- 
tament by the word ^' immerse," and then in 
introducing this word in English transla- 
tions of the New Testament. But the con- 
clusion is illicit. And there is a converse 
fallacy on the other side. Because most 
exegetes believe (correctly) that the word 
baptize has acquired a ritual significance, 
and that the rite thus denoted can be prop- 
erly administered by the act of sprinkling, 
some of them seem to think that the word 
can therefore be explained by the word 
sprinkle, and that this word can be used to 
translate the Greek word. This conclusion, 



30 Baptism. 

too, is illicit. And the proper way to deal 
with such words, especially with words 
whose meaning is still in debate among the 
Churches, is to retain the words verbally, 
not translating them at all by other words, 
but explaining them. So, with this word 
in particular. Since there can be no com- 
mon agreement in the Churches upon the 
word 'Hmmerse^^ as a proposed translation, 
and none upon the word " sprinkle y^'' all 
parties should adhere to the word ^'bap- 
tize,^^ Yet when we come to explain bap- 
tism, we should contend that it is a ritual 
act, and signifies, not immersion, not pour- 
ing, not sprinkling, but initiation^ or con- 
secration, into Christ. But though ''initi- 
ation'^^ expresses the ritual import of the 
act, and should be used in explaining it, we 
should not thrust even this word as a trans- 
lation upon the word in the New Testa- 
ment, or in theology, so as to substitute 
the one term for the other. And so we 
should hold that by whatever form we bap- 



BuEiED WITH Christ. 31 

tize the candidate, whether by immersion, 
or pouring, or sprinkling (and the last 
preferably to the first), we ritually accom- 
plish the end of baptism, which is to signify 
initiation into Christ. 

But immersionist scholars claim that the 
word baptize, as used in the New Testa- 
ment, retained its classic value ; immersionist 
or rather, they think that it kept claim. 
only one of the two modal senses which it 
had in the classic Greek, the one specific 
sense of physical immersion, when the fiuid 
remains stationary, and the object (or the 
person to be baptized) is moved or put 
under it. In their claim, this physical im- 
mersion is the essential point. They hold 
that the word means that, and nothing but 
that ; and that the emersion from the water, 
after the immersion, is no part of the mean- 
ing of the word, but only a reasonable in- 
ference in the nature of the case. Now this 
literal modal sense of a physical immersion 
might possibly suit in some of the passages 



32 Baptism. 

in the New Testament ; but it does not suit 
in the passages before us, from the sixth 
chapter of Eomans and the second chapter 
of Colossians. The only possible exegesis 
of these passages rules out any modal sense 
whatever. And if this sense is surely ruled 
Chan e In ^^^ ^^ these instances, it must, 
meaning of consistently with the immersion- 
Baptize, -g^ claim of uniformity, be ruled 
out in every other place in the New Testa- 
ment. The fallacy of the immersionist 
consists, as we have seen, in assuming that 
because the word laptize remains verbally 
the same as it was in the classic Greek, 
the sense also remains the same. But noth- 
ing is more common than changes in the 
sense of words when the words, remaining 
verbally the same, are brought into new 
connections. This is shown by the differ- 
ent meanings, sometimes very unlike mean- 
ings, given in the dictionaries to almost 
every leading word either in the Greek or 
ii^ the English language. This New Testa- 



Buried with Christ. 33 

ment word baptize doubtless remains iden- 
tically the same as it was in the classic 
Greek ; but its meaning in its new associa- 
tions in the New Testament does not remain 
the same. 

This word is not a solitary or peculiar 
exception. There are many words in the 
New Testament which did not ^, ,, 

Similar 

bring with them into the Scrip- cfianges in 
tures and into the Christian vo-^*^^' ^^''^^• 
cabulary the meanings which they had in 
the classics. Certainly Christ and Paul 
and John did not attach the same sense as 
the classic writers, to the classic Greek 
words which they used for sin, grace, holi- 
ness, faith, salvation; for atonement, re- 
demption, justification resurrection; and to 
scores of other classic words that have 
become New Testament words. Christian 
readers understand these words in a sense 
that would have puzzled Plato, or even 
Plutarch, a contemporary of the apostles. 
Such is the fact in regard to the word 



34 Baptism. 

''baptize." This word, though keeping its 
verbal identity, has undergone a complete 
change of meaning. In classic Greek it 
had one meaning, that of immersion^ already 
described ; in New Testament Greek it has 
another and very unlike meaning, that of a 
ritual initiation^ by whatever application of 
water. And it has this last meaning, and 
this alone, in all its present ecclesiastic or 
ceremonial associations. 

But baptism is not the only modal word, 
which, in the Biblical usage, has dropped its 
other ritual "i^odal value, and has acquired a 
words. ritual value. The word for 
'' circumcision," whether in Hebrew, Greek, 
or Latin, has had a development of mean- 
ing almost precisely parallel with that of 
baptism. Expressive at first of a literal 
modal act, the mere physical ''mangling 
of the flesh," with, so far, no further mean- 
ing, and with no religious significance, it 
became (possibly even earlier than the Mo- 
saic law) consecrated to a specific ritual 



Buried with Christ. 35 

usage, having, among the Jews, a cere- 
monial sense almost that of a sacrament. 
And then in its final acceptation, in Paul's 
frequent use of the word, its original literal 
sense of "cutting the flesh" completely 
faded out, and the word became, like bap- 
tism, a term expressive in general of con- 
secration to the Lord. It is thus that Paul 
can say: ''That is not circumcision which 
is outward in flesh: [though this was once 
its only meaning] , but that is circumcision 
which is of the heart " (Romans ii, 28) ; and, 
again, "We [the Gentiles, uncircumcised 
men] are the circumcision, who worship in 
Spirit, and do not trust in flesh " (Philip- 
piansiii,3) ; and, again, in one of the passages 
which we have before us in this discussion, 
"Ye [Gentiles] were circumcised with a 
circumcision not made with hands [that is, 
physical, in the flesh], in the circumcision 
of Christ" (Colossians ii, 11). 

"/§9rmHe" is another word that has had 
exactly the same development from a phys- 



36 Baptism. 

ical sense into a ritual sense. Prom its 
specific modal meaning, it has acquired the 
significance of a ritual purification and of 
consecration to God. The range of this 
word is much more restricted than that of 
baptism J but one passage is absolutely con- 
clusive as to its ritual sense, or at least a 
figurative application of the ritual sense. 
Among the Jews, the priest was wont to 
sprinkle the congregation with water, and 
sometimes with blood, as a ritual token of 
purification. In allusion to this Jewish 
usage, which was literal and physical, the 
writer of Hebrews says, "Let us draw 
near to the holy place, . . . having our 
hearts sprinkled [that is, washed, purified] 
from an evil conscience." (Hebrews x, 22.) 
In this word baptize, we have an interest- 
ing and instructive instance of the change 
in meaning above described. Under the 
Mosaic law, the Jews, if ceremonially de- 
filed, were commanded to wash themselves 
and their clothing, as symbols of purifica- 



BuEiED WITH Christ. 37 

tion. In the case of Gentile proselytes 
from heathenism, the Jews first circumcised 
them as a sign of consecration to God, and 
then administered ceremonial washing, to 
signify internal purifiation. This symbol- 
ical washing when publicly administered by 
an officiator was always sprinkling. We do 
not read that any priest ever immersed any 
Jewish member of the congregation, or any 
proselyte ; but we often read that the priest 
sprinkled them with water, or with blood, 
to indicate the ritual purification. Eitual 
bathing by the Jew, for ritual uncleanness, 
was a private act of the unclean man ; and 
needed no intervention of priest, or sprink- 
ling hyssop. It was left to the exaggerated 
ritualism of the post-apostolic Church of 
Christ to violate the decencies of religious 
service by an actual, tactual, pressure by the 
priest of the nude persons of candidates, 
men and women^ in the act of immersion. 
But in the case of the public and official 
initiation and consecration of a proselyte, 



38 Baptism. 

the service of the priest (or perhaps of 
any Jew: Pmil circumcised Timothy), was 
needed to circumcise him and to sprinkle 
the water of purification. The Hebrew 
language had a word ''tabal," of which the 
primary meaning was moisten^ stain. Thus 
"Joseph's brethren stained, defiled his coat, 
in blood." (Gen. xxxvii, 31.) The Septua- 
gint word here is l^oXwav^ " emolunan,''^ 
But the word tadal was mostly used for dip. 
Thus: ''A clean person shall dip the hyssop 
in water, and sprinkle it upon the unclean." 
(Num. xix, 18.) The Septuagint word here 
is /Sdil/et^ '^iapsei.^^ Again : ''Naaman dipped 
himself seven times in the Jordan." (2 
Kings V, 14.) The Septuagint word here is 
i^aTTTi^eroy ^^eiapHzeto.^^ And this last is the 
Greek word which took the place of the 
Hebrew, among the Jews ; but with a modi- 
fied meaning. It was thus early not a word 
of mode^ but of rite. After Alexander the 
Great conquered Asia, in B. 0. 330, the 
Greek language became largely employed 



BuKiED WITH Christ. 39 

by the Jews; and the Greek word haptize 
was used, not as meaning a physical im- 
mersion, but with large latitude 

« T ' ^ -rt Jewish 

01 mode, as a ceremonial purm- usage of 
cation, which, in accordance with ^^^ "^^^^ 
Jewish antecedents, was sprink- 
ling. And that this word was thus used by 
the Jews, during the Greek period, is shown 
by the instances of its use in the Greek 
apocryphal writings of the Jews. Thus it 
is said that Judith, when a visitant in the 
camp of Holofernes, and exposed to ritual 
pollution, "went forth by night into the 
ravine of Bethulia, and baptized herself 
[purified herself ritually] by the spring of 
water." (Judith xii, 7; B. C. 150.) For 
ordinary washing Judith doubtless had 
water in her tent ; but she nightly went out 
of the heathen camp, that she might purify 
herself ritually, in living water in the open 
air. (Compare the quotation, p. 20, from 
''The Teaching of the Twelve.") This 
ceremony was probably performed by the 



40 Baptism. 

act of sprinkling. The Greek preposition 
is "%, or at the side^ of the spring," not in 
it. Besides, even if the spring was large 
enough for immersion, it is not probable 
that Judith would immerse herself in it, 
either naked, or in her garments. In like 
manner, the son of Sirach says, ''He that 
baptizes himself from [the pollution of] a 
dead body, and touches it again, . . . what 
did he profit with his washing? " (Ecclesias- 
ticus xxxiv, 27 ; B. C. 140.) The writer here 
uses two general words, haptize and tvash^ 
as equivalent terms to express this cere- 
monial purification from a dead body. But 
Moses commands that this purification be 
done by sprinkling (which is a third spe- 
cific term used ritually for the same act) : 
"Whosoever touches a dead body, . 
if the water for uncleanness has not been 
sprinhled upon him, he shall be unclean." 
(Numbers xix, 13.) 

Thus the Greek word baptize, which in 
secular connections kept its old specific, 



BuKiED WITH Christ. 41 

modal sense of immerse^ gradually in Jewish 
usage lost all significance as a modal word, 
and acquired a special range as a purely 
ritual term ; in which, from the days of the 
Maccabees, during the last centuries of 
Jewish history, and during all these Chris- 
tian centuries, the mode was no more signi- 
fied than it is signified by the current use 
of the ritual word baptize now. For two 
thousand years and more, the word has 
merely expressed initiation into a new state 
or relation. The word does not denote, or 
connote, the particular mode of the rite. 
Any ritual application of the water, in what- 
ever mode applied (but preferably in the 
Jewish ceremonial, by sprinkling), wa.s Jew- 
ish baptism; as it was said: '' I will sprinkle 
clean water upon you, and ye will be clean ; 
from all your filthiness and from all your 
idols I will cleanse you." (Ezek. xxxvi, 25.) 
And this word of the Jews was adopted by 
the Baptist to express initiation into repent- 
ance; and was continued by Christ to ex- 



42 Baptism. 

press the prescribed ceremonial or symbolic 

rite for initiation into the Christian Church. 

The word did not express to 

adopted by John the Baptist, and did not 

John and express to Christ and his f oUow- 

Christ. ^ - . , . 

ers, a mere physical immersion 
of the body of the believer into water ; but 
a ritual consecration of the man, body and 
soul, and an initiation into the new faith 
which he has accepted. This, and this 
only, is Christian baptism. 

Such are the facts in regard to the change 

of meaning of this word, from the original 

Change of ^^^^^^^^ modal scnsc into the rit- 

meaning: ual application. That a change 
^''^"^ has actually taken place in the 
sense of the word baptism since the classic 
usage, is eyident and indisputable. All per- 
sons, without exception, even the immer- 
sionists, admit and af5firm that the word in 
its present use in English, has undergone 
this change in its meaning, — that it doe^a 
not now express physical immersion as it did 



BuKiED WITH Christ. 43 

in the classic Greek, but has become a term 
of ritual import. The only dispute is as to 
the date and history of this change. The 
account given above shows the real facts in 
the case. The change is as old as the days 
of the Jews, centuries before Christ. But 
the immersionists affirm that this change in 
the meaning of the word iaptize never at- 
tached to it in the Greek Testament ; that it 
does not appear at all in the early Christian 
literature ; that it is a modern ecclesiastical 
perversion; and is a change in the Eng- 
lish word only. Baptist authorities say 
that this change in the meaning of the word 
took place as late as in the time of Queen 
Elizabeth, A. D. 1558, the final date of 
Protestantism in England. If so, the 
change must have been very sudden; for 
after the date of Elizabeth, and before the 
date of the Puritan commonwealth in 1643, 
the ritual sense of the word had become 
fully established and currently accepted. 
Less than a century is a surprisingly brief 



44 Baptism. 

period for so grave a revolution to take 
place in the meaning of a crucial word like 
this, especially seeing that the change left 
no waymarks in the current usages of the 
people or in the contemporary theological 
literature of the Church, by which we can 
trace the progress of the change from the 
sense of a physical immersion in 1558, to 
the very different sense of a ritual initiation 
in 1640. Here is a philological and a theo- 
logical revolution without parallel for its 
suddenness. If this new sense of the word 
started in the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and came into undisputed acceptance 
in the Church in scarce more than a single 
generation, it must have sprung into exist- 
ence as if by a single leap. But in v/hat- 

ShaH we ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ change in the ac- 
transiate It cepted meaning of the word was 
" Jn^merse?" \^y>Q-^g\^i about, the immersionists 
claim that the change in the meaning of the 
word, and the misunderstanding which it 
brings with it, of the critical passages in the 



Buried with Christ. 45 

Scripture, like the ones before us in this dis- 
cussion, make it incumbent on all honest 
translators and all honest exegetes to dis- 
place from the English Bible, and from 
theological literature, the ritual word '' iap- 
tizeP (though it is the original word, sanc- 
tioned by Christ and the apostles and by 
fifteen hundred years of Christian history), 
and to substitute in its stead the non-ritual 
word ^'immerse^''^ which, they claim, is a 
modal word of the same meaning as the 
"modal word baptize," down to the year 
1558. Though why of the two classic 
senses of the word baptize they insist on 
the word immerse rather than the equally 
well-attested word submerse (or overwhelm), 
it is not easy to comprehend — or is it not 
easy? 

But this sectarian claim of the immer- 
sionists assumes the very question that is in 
debate ; and by this substitution sectarian 
of the word immerse instead of assumption. 
baptize, they unchurch all the rest of the 



46 Baptism. 

Christian world. "Immerse" is not the 
Christian sense of the word iaptize^ and it 
should not be substituted in the place of it. 
The word baptize has undergone one change 
in its history, one only, the change before 
the times of the Maccabees; but not the 
recent change that the immersionists claim. 
There has been no change in the meaning 
of the word baptize in the last two thousand 
years, and more. The historic fact is, that 
the only change in the meaning of the word 
baptize was a change away from the classic 
sense of a physical immersion into the pres- 
ent non-modal, ritual sense of "initiate." 
This change is not modern, but is very old. 
Long before the time of John the Baptist, 
and of Christ and the apostles, this had 
already become the accepted sense, ritually, 
among the Jews; and the word came into 
the Greek Testament with this ritual sense 
fully established ; and this ritual sense is its 
only present meaning in ecclesiastical or 
religious connections. 



Buried with Christ. 47 

These statements can easily be verified; 
and they are in harmony with the entire 
drift of Scripture testimony and „ , 

^ "^ Harmonizes 

Scripture teaching. The cere- with 
monial, or ritual, use of water Scripture. 
for symbolical cleansing, among the Jews, 
goes back certainly to the time of the Mo- 
saic legislation. Moses commanded that the 
Jews, when ritually defiled, should "wash 
their clothes and bathe their bodies in 
water," to signify that they were made rit- 
ually clean. But the usage had probably 
prevailed long before the time of Moses. 
The washing of one's person, or of a part of 
the person, is the natural, the spontane- 
ously-suggested symbol, the world over, to 
express innocence or moral purity. In ex- 
actly this way, Pilate, who was a Eoman, 
and probably knew nothing of any Jewish 
usage of the kind, adopted this universal 
symbol, which was as appropriate for a 
heathen governor as for the Jewish legis- 
lator, or for John the Baptist, or for Christ 



48 Baptism. 

himself: '^He took water and washed his 
hands before the multitude, saying, I am 
innocent of the blood of this just man." 
(Matt, xxvii, 24.) In the same way the 
psalmist says, "I will wash my hands in 
innocency." The significance of the sym- 
bol, as used by Pilate, did not depend on 
the quantity of the water ; and the ceremo- 
nial washing required of the Jews was prob- 
ably not actually of the entire person, and 
did not imply that the quantity of water 
must be sufficient for immersion ; but it was 
only representatively or constructively a 
"washing" of the person, as is shown 
clearly in other instances. For example, 
the priest " sprinkled the congregation with 
clean water," and this was counted con- 
structively as the washing of the whole 
person, to symbolize the cleansing of the 
Jewish conscience. Besides the daily 
superstition, domcstic, non-ritual, washings 
of unclean hands and persons, to which the 
Jews were accustomed for cleanliness' sake, 



BuEiED WITH Christ. 49 

but which were certainly not very profuse, 
they had also, in later times, '' divers bap- 
tisms" for the ceremonial purification of 
" cups and pots, and brazen vessels and di- 
vans," the furniture of the dining-room. 
Much of this ceremonial was a superfluity 
of superstition, not commanded by Moses, 
and was only a ''following the traditio7is of 
the elders ;" that is to say, of the Pharisees, 
who overlaid the law with ritual burdens 
that were too grievous to be borne. Many 
of these were as absurd as the fantasies of 
Hindu caste. In this direction the later 
Jews were scrupulous lest they should defile 
themselves by "eating with unwashed 
hands ;" and whenever they came from the 
street they washed themselves. This cere- 
mony was, of course, in their conceit, sym- 
bolic, representative of purification of the 
spirit. But as it was purely a work of su- 
pererogation, it was not required to the ut- 
most letter. They compromised on a per- 
functory form. This washing did not need 
4 



50 Baptism. 

to be done, actually, for the whole body, with 
tubs of water and soap, and flesh-brushes 
(in Latin, strigiles) ; but could be done rep- 
resentatively, and was practically confined 
to the '^ washing of the hands" (compare 
2 Kings iii, 11); perhaps only touching the 
water, perfunctorily, with the tips of the 
fingers, as devout Catholics do at the en- 
trance of the church. ''For the Pharisees, 
and all the Jews, if they do not wash their 
hands up to the wrist, do not eat; and com- 
ing from the market-place, if they do not 
sprinkle themselves, they do not eat."* 
(Mark vii, 4. ) On two occasions Jesus dined 



*Thls word "sprmZc^e" is the accepted reading here 
of the latest and best editions of the Greek Testament, 
and is adopted in the Revised Translation, instead of 
the word baptize. The two Greek words differ in only 
two letters—" rantisontai " and " baptisontai.^^ But even 
if we accept the common text, "they baptize them- 
selves," we must still interpet the " baptism'''' as merely 
a perfunctory and simulative washing: they dipped 
the ends of their fingers in the bowl, and flipped a few 
drops over their faces, and were ritually clean! Christ 
did not approve or practice these superstitious observ- 
ances of the Pharisees, 



Buried with Christ. 51 

with Pharisees; who were punctilious on 
these matters of their ceremonial; but on 
neither occasion did Jesus conform to their 
customs before eating. Once, the host ex- 
pressed his wonder that Jesus had not 
''baptized himself before dinner" (Luke 
xi, 38) ; though this he could have done if 
so minded, ritually, by sprinkling a few 
drops of water on his person. On the other 
occasion, when also he doubtless had water 
for the empty ritual observance, but did not 
avail himself of it, he nevertheless com- 
plained that the host *'gave him no water 
for his feet." (Luke vii, 36.) This he 
needed not for ritual usage, but for phys- 
ical cleansing from the dust of the street. 
It was this daily domestic lavation of the 
feet that bore so large a part in Asiatic hos- 
pitality. Thus Abraham en- Domestic 
treated Jehovah, who came dis- washing. 
guised as a wayfarer, ''Let now a little 
water be fetched, and wash your feet. " (Gen. 
xviii, 4.) So Lot asked his visitants, **Turn 



52 Baptism. 

into your servant's house, and wash your 
feet." (Gen. xix, 2.) So Laban "gave 
Abraham's servant water to wash his feet, 
and the men's feet that were with him." 
(Gen. xxiv, 32.) So Joseph's servant ''gave 
his brethren water, and they washed their 
feet." (Gen. xliii, 24.) So Jesus ''washed 
the feet of his disciples." (John xiii, 5.) So 
the typical widow described by Paul "has 
used hospitality, she has washed the saints' 
feet. " (1 Tim. v, 10. ) These were not ritual 
washings, they did not come under the 
"divers baptisms" mentioned in the New 
Testament; but I quote them to show the 
outside quantity of water that was usually 
at the command of an Oriental family, for 
any purpose, domestic or ritual. Certainly 
the Jews in the wilderness could not have 
had a sufficient supply of water, or the de- 
cent privacy, for literal immersion of their 
persons: certainly, even after their settle- 
ment in Palestine, they could not have liter- 
ally immersed themselves under the frequent 



Buried with Christ. 53 

and unexpected daily emergencies which 
their law, and especially the later ''tradi- 
tions of the elders," entailed on them. As 
already noted, Palestine was an ill-watered 
country; and the daily supplies for house- 
hold purposes had often to be drawn from 
deep wells, and carried on women's heads 
a long distance. It was so that Eebecca (in 
Mesopotamia) drew water from the well for 
her flocks, and for Eliezer's camels ; it was 
so that the Samaritan woman came from 
the distant city to get a pitcher of water 
from Jacob's well ; it was so that probably 
the mother of Jesus and his sisters drew 
and carried the water they drank, or used 
in cooking, or in their ablutions. The six 
waterpots at the marriage in Cana, which 
held the store of the household, were a large 
provision for a single family; and quite 
probably had been borrowed for the occa- 
sion ; yet they held at the utmost but twenty- 
seven gallons each, and neither singly nor in 
the total could have served for a literal im- 



54 Baptism, 

mersion. But they yielded a supply ample 
for the ritual baptism by sprinkling, and a 
moderate supply for all the domestic wants 
of the house. 

Baptism was a ritual usage always em- 
ployed, together with circumcision, for ini- 
Baptism is tiating proselytes from heathen- 
initiation, ignx into Judaism. And thus it 
was naturally and consistently adapted to 
serve as an initiation of converts into any 
new faith or reformation. It was a usage 
whose intent was so well understood that 
the Jews of John the Baptist's time expected 
the teacher of a new doctrine to baptize his 
converts. Thus, when John came bap- 
tizing, but denied that he was the Messiah 
or his forerunner Elijah, and so had appar- 
ently nothing new to preach, the Pharisees 
quite reasonably and cogently asked him, 
''Why then dost thou baptize?" Christ 
spoke to Mcodemus in terms that showed 
that baptism was a well-understood usage : 
'' Except a man bq born of water [ceremoni- 



BuEiED WITH Christ. 55 

ally initiated by the known sign into the 
new faith], and of the Spirit, he can not 
enter into my kingdom," This ritual use 
of water Christ here assumes as the formal 
door of initiation ; yet we are not to under- 
stand that Christ meant that the formal rite 
was essential to membership in his kingdom. 
Again, when Jesus began to make disciples 
and to baptize, the Pharisees, angered at 
this well-known token of a new doctrine, 
drove him from Judea into Galilee. (John 
iv, 1.) And when Peter, at Pentecost, 
called on the multitudes of strangers, all 
Jews, from all parts of the Eoman empire, 
to repent and be baptized, he took it for 
granted that all understood baptism as an 
initiation into a new faith ; and none of the 
three thousand converts that day needed 
any explanation. Evidently all clearly un- 
derstood that their change of religious views, 
in passing from Moses to Christ, was rightly 
followed by baptism, or initiation into the 
new faith, by the old and familiar sign. 



56 Baptism. 

which was, of course, the Jewish sprinkling. 
Such was the ritual use of the word among 
the Jews. The word had already acquired 
this ceremonial or ritual significance before 
John and Christ came preaching and bap- 
tizing. And they merely adopted the old 
and familiar Jewish rite ; and they adopted 
the ritual Greek word " baptize," which fitly 
named it. 

The rite of Christian baptism, then, is 
clearly defined, not as a mere physical im- 

^. . .. mersion into water, but as a rit- 

Christian .... . 

baptism ual initiation into Christ ; that is, 

solely ritual. -^^^ ^j^^ ^^^^^ ^^ profession of 

of Christ, by the sacramental use of water 
as prescribed by Christ. But the particular 
form or mode of the rite is not prescribed, 
and is lost sight of, as non-significant in 
itself. The word baptism in the New Tes- 
tament, and in all Christian religious or 
ecclesiastical associations, must be explained 
in accordance with this view. We have 
seen that, in classic Greek, the word baptize 



Buried with Christ. 67 

was a modal word, and sometimes meant 
immerse; yet certainly in the Jewish usage 
before the time of Christ, and eyen more 
certainly, if possible, in the New Testament 
usage, it was no longer a word of mode, 
signifying literal, physical immersion; but 
this sense, by long use, had faded out of it, 
and it had become a word of rite, signifying 
initiation^ by whatever mode. This adop- 
tion of an old modal word, which was non- 
religious in its original denotement, and 
rehabilitation of it into a ritual word for 
religious or ecclesiastical applications, took 
place long before Jesus bade his disciples 
<' Go, and baptize [that is initiate] all na- 
tions into the name [the profession] of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit." And in this ritual significance, 
'^baptism^^ as a rite meant, not ^ 
water or any other element, nor not water, 
baptistery, or any other place for **'' ^^^^^' 
the performance of the rite ; not immersion 
into water, or any other element, nor yet 



58 Baptism. 

pouring or sprmkling ; not purification or 
regeneration, but simply and solely, initia- 
tion — initiation into Christ; into a profes- 
sion of faith in Christ's vicarious death. 
And the mode of the rite is not implied, and 
is not essential to the full significance of 
the rite. 

In attempting to reach the precise conno- 
tation of this word, we must recollect that 
The baptis- ^^^ sole concept which the im- 
mai formula, mersionists entertain of the rite, 
is that it is a literal physical immersion into 
water. But the word daptize as used for the 
New Testament rite, and not merely figura- 
tively, often stands in such connections that 
all thought of a specific external physical 
act, like immersion, disappears entirely. 
Indeed the words of the baptismal formula, 
both in the Greek and in a correct transla- 
tion into English, forbid the sense of a 
physical immersion. The common, though 
incorrect translation, "Baptize in tho 
name," is usually understood in all the 



Buried with Christ. 59 

Churches, including the immersionists, as 
meaning ^^ly the authority of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy ivieaning of 
Spirit." This translation, with the formula. 
the preposition 'HX" makes a complete and 
intelligible sentence, and it might, appar- 
ently, be the appropriate meaning of the 
baptismal formula; and the word "baptize" 
then might denote, according to the inter- 
pretation of the immersionists, a physical 
immersion. But the New Testament for- 
mula correctly translated is, "Baptize into 
the name [or profession] of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit " (Matt, 
xxviii, 19) ; and in this translation immer- 
sionism can find no confirmation. But Pe- 
dobaptists can consistently accept either of 
these two translations. With the Author- 
ized they can say, " Baptize [initiate] in the 
name of the Father" (which, though not 
the ISTew Testament sense of the formula, 
makes an intelligible sense); and they can 
also consistently say, with the Eevised, 



60 Baptism. 

" Baptize [initiate] into the name of the 

Father." Thus, with either translation, 
they correctly interpret the verb in the rit- 
ual sense of ^^ initiate ^^'^ and the word name 
in the sense of "profession," or ''faith:" — 
'' I initiate thee in [or into\ the profession of 
the Father." And with either preposition, 
in or into^ the word initiate is not a verb 
of motion, and does not express the act 
of moving, or putting a candidate into a re- 
ceptacle, or a baptistery; and the word name 
is not the place whither^ or into whicTi^ as a 
receptacle, or as a baptistery, the initiation 
brings the candidate. Such is the consis- 
tent and intelligible interpretation of the 
baptismal formula as held by Pedobaptists. 
But the immersionists who hold that bap- 
tism is not a ritual term, but a modal word, 
and means a physical immersion — the put- 
ting of the candidate into a iaptistery or 
receptacle — have not this alternative choice 
between the two translations of the preposi- 
tion in or into. In other passages in the 



BUEIED WITH ChEIST. 61 

Greek Testament, the word haptize is found 
with the preposition in ; but in the baptis- 
mal formula the preposition is into. And 
if the word baptize expresses only a literal, 
physical immersion (and is not, as the 
Pedobaptists claim, a ritual or sacramental 
term, without mode), the immersionists 
must consistently translate and explain the 
formula, '^ I baptize ['immerse'] thee into 
the name of the Father." But this transla- 
tion they do not give,* and can not give; 
because it makes nonsense. They can im- 
merse physically into water ; but they can 
not immerse physically into the name of the 
Father. The name (or profession, or faith) 
of the Trinity is not a receptacle or baptis- 
tery, into which they can put the candidate. 



*But the "American Bible Union Translation" (a 
Baptist version, which, aside from its sectarianism. Is 
one of the best in the language) honestly puts the 
word into in the (revised) text of Matt, xxviii, 19, 
" Immerse into the name;" but then, in the margin, it 
explains this word away, by giving incorrectly the 
word unto as an alternative translation. 



62 Baptism. 

And thus they are in a dilemma between the 
two translations. The necessity of choosing 
between the two translations brings them 
into serious embarrassment. They may 
choose to say, "I immerse in the name" 
(that is, ly the authority) "of the Father," 
and thus avoid an absurdity; but it is at the 
expense of their Greek scholarship ; or they 
may choose to say, ''I immerse into the 
name of the Father," and thus save their 
credit for Greek scholarship, but at the 
expense of their understanding. Doctor 
Conant, in his book on ^'Baptizein^'^'^ quotes 
a number of passages in the Greek Testa- 
ment^ in which the preposition in is used in 
connection with the verb iaptize^ and he 
gives the preposition in these passages the 
correct translation ''in;" though he incor- 
rectly translates the verb "immei^se;^^ for 
example, he quotes, "I immerse you in 
water" (Matt, iii, 11), and ''They were all 
immersed in the river Jordan. " (Mark i, 5. ) 
But the crucial passages in which the prepo- 



Buried with Christ. 63 

sition into is used with the verb baptize^ he 
prudently evades altogether, for example: 
"Baptize into the name of the Father." 
(Matt, xxviii, 19.) "They were baptized 
into the name of the Lord Jesus." (Acts 
viii, 16.) "Were ye baptized into the name 
of Paul?" (1 Cor. i, 13.) As a Greek 
scholar, he could not translate it, " Immerse 
in the name of the Father;" for this does 
not express the force of the Greek preposi- 
tion, and does not convey the meaning of 
the baptismal formula ; and, as a man of un- 
derstanding, he could not translate it "Im- 
merse [physically] into the name of the 
Father;" for this is nonsense.* 



* Yet In his edition of Matthew, " Translated for the 
American Bible Union," he intrepidly translated Matt, 
xxviii, 19, "Immerse in the name of the Father;'* 
and actually defended this translation of the preposi- 
tion as the meaning of the ritual formula. Did he pre- 
sume on the ignorance of all his readers? His bad 
sectarian warp led him into bad Greek and bad inter- 
pretation. The later editors of this translation (as we 
saw in the last note, p. 61), correct his Greek, but at 
what a cost to their own candor, and then in the mar- 
gin they retract this translation! 



64 Baptism. 

But the immersionists are not done with 
their embarrassments over this little prepo- 
sition into. When Paul says, ''We were 
baptized into Christ Jesus; we were bap- 
tized into his death'' (Eom vi, 3), what 
do the immersionists make of his meaning ? 
If we translate, and explain, for them, " We 
were immersed^ [physically], into Christ 
Jesus," the gross question is instinctively 
suggested, "Was the body of Christ again 
pierced — and opened now as a laptistery — 
that we might be physically immersed into 
it ? And was his death also regarded as a 
iaptistery^ of a definite cubic volume, so 
that we might be physically immersed into 
it ?'^ It is an evasion to reply that the Greek 
preposition means unto instead of into; for 
though this meaning often attaches to the 
word after verbs of motion towards a point, 
or of approach, yet the verb baptize (''im- 
merse") is not one of them; and we can 
not say "Jesus was baptized (immersed) 



BuEiED WITH Christ. 65 

unto the Jordan."*^ (Mark i, 8.) But if 
the preposition be thus translated ''Im- 
merse unto the name of Christ," the em- 
barrassment of the immersionists is not only 
not removed, but is greatly increased, to 
their discomfort and discomfiture. Trans- 
lating with the word into — ^'Immerse into 
the name"— they are merely guilty of non- 
sense ; but translating with the word unto — 
" Immerse unto the name of Christ" — they 
unconsciously abandon the whole matter in 
debate, and actually convert immersion into 
a ritual act. The only possible concept of 
the phrase "immerse unto Christ," is clearly 
that of consecration unto Christ: and this, 
independently of the word immersion, is 



* Yet this is probably the true meaning of the prepo- 
sition in this solitary instance of this preposition with 
a word for the fluid or the baptistery. This construc- 
tion, called the "pregnant construction," is often 
found when, besides the first verb, a second verb of 
motion must be supplied; e. (/., "Philip was found 
[having come'] unto Azotus." (Acts viii, 89.) " Jesus was 
baptized by John, [having come] unto the Jordan." 
5 



66 Baptism. 

merely ^^ initiation m^fo Christ:" and the 
word expresses a ritual concept. 

But there are passages in which the word 
baptize has gone yet farther from the literal, 

"Ba tize" classic sense, so that it not only 
means docs not mean physical immer- 
initiate. gjQj^, it does not even make any 
allusion to the Christian rite or sacrament 
of baptism ; and only in the most general 
manner has the non-ritual sense of initia- 
tio7i. This is the only possible, but the 
simple, explanation of the famous passage 
in 1 Cor. x, 1 : " For I would not have you 
ignorant, brethren, that all our fathers were 

"Baptized ^^dcr the cloud, and all passed 
Into Moses." through the sea ; and they were 
all iaptized into Moses^ in the cloud and in 
the sea." The sense forbids any such in- 
terpretation as that of literal immersion. 
There was certainly here no baptismal rite ; 
and there was no one to administer the rite. 
There was no physical immersion in the sea, 
or submersion by the cloud, and probably 



Buried with Christ. 67 

no touch of water at all. To quote from 
the sublime description of this miracle in 
the 77th Psalm, ''The clouds poured out 
water,'^ as intended to mean that the Israel- 
ites were ritually baptized ly sprinhling^ is 
to descend from the loftiest flight of poetry 
to the humblest pedestrian prosing. Such 
an interpretation "sinks from pathos to 
bathos;" it goes on all fours. The saying 
means that the Jews, who, in their despair, 
had lost faith in Moses, now, upon occasion 
of this great miracle "in the cloud and in 
the sea," suddenly recovered their faith in 
him. "When Israel saw that great work 
which Jehovah did upon the Egyptians, 
they Relieved [as they had never believed] in 
Jehovah, and in Ms servant Moses, '^'^ (Exod. 
xiv, 31.) The language of the Corinthians 
that "they were baptized into Moses" 
means the same thing as the language in 
Exodus, that they were now, if never b'Sf ore, 
initiated into Moses, into faith in him as a 
divine leader. 



68 Baptism. 

With this explanation of these words ac- 
cords also the sense of the passage in 1 Cor. 
xii, 13 : " For in one Spirit, we all [whether 
Jews or Greeks] were baptized into one 
body." Here, too, the sense of the passage 
forbids the translation ^^ immersed,'''' The 
*'body" of the Church is not a baptistery 
into which believers can be physically im- 
mersed. The only interpretation is that all 
believers (both Jews and Gentiles) were 
initiated into Christ, incorporated into one 
body, the Church. 

In these, and many other places in the 
New Testament, the literal sense of a phys- 

Th w rd *^^^ immersion into water gives 
"Immerse" US no intelligible meaning. But 

nonsense. ^^^ ^j^^^j sense of the word bap- 
tize makes admissible meaning in all the 
pa,ssages in the l^ew Testament where the 
Christian rite is named. And this meaning 
is confirmed by the fact that it sometimes 
happens that several other ritual terms are 
employed with ''baptism," in describing 



Buried with Christ. 69 

some one incident in which immersion is 
out of question. For example, just before 
the ascension, Jesus promised his disciples, 
''Ye will le laptized with [or in\ the Holy 
Spirit^ not many days hence." (Acts i, 5.) 
A short time after, referring to the same 
promise, he said, '^Ye will receive power 
when the Holy Spirit has come upon you." 
(Acts i, 8.) This baptism of the Holy 
Spirit came ten days later, on the day of 
Pentecost. And Peter explained the miracle 
of that day, ''This is that which has been 
spoken through the prophet Joel: And it 
will come to pass in the last days, I will pour 
out my Spirit upon all flesh." (Acts ii, 16.) 
Now here three different words are used in 
describing the same act, the one gift of the 
Holy Spirit. The critic or the theologian 
who shall look at the passages in their in- 
ternal relation to each other, will see that it 
is absolutely indifferent to the sacred his- 
torian whether he speak of this gift of the 
Spirit as a haptism^ a coming ^ or a pouring 



70 Baptism. 

out. To him they are but one in meaning, 
and the conception of immersion is not 
found in the description. 

But though the words baptize, sprinkle, 

pour, are commutable for the thought^ it is 

MD « ». iiot correct to believe or claim 

Baptize " 

not; that ttiey can be exchanged for 
translatable. ^^^ another. The word "bap- 
tize" can not be translated by "sprinkle" 
or "pour," any more than "sprinkle" can 
be translated by "baptize," or either of 
them by the word ''immerse,'^^ Each word 
has its own specific sense ; and though they 
have a ritual sense in common, the words 
verbally are absolutely non-interchangeable. 
It will not do to translate the word "bap- 
tize" by the word "sprinkle" or "pour," 
as was sometimes done by the old diction- 
aries, and was maintained by some Pedo- 
But can be baptist sectaries. That is sub- 
expiained. stituting one modal word for 
another modal word. Yet both these words 
can be explained as ritual terms by the word 



Buried with Christ. 71 

initiate^ which is a meaning that they both 
have in common. The words taken verb- 
ally as modal words can not be interchanged ; 
but if we fall back on the ritual sense com- 
mon to them both, either can be used almost 
as appropriately as the other. This is aptly 
shown by the instance just quoted, in the 
promise by Christ, who uses the word ^^lap- 
tize;^^ and in the explanation of the promise 
by Peter, who uses the word ^'pour^^ as an 
exact synonym ritually. The use of water, 
the symbol of purification, is essential to 
the baptismal rite ; but the volume of water 
or the mode of application is not essential. 
The symbol is perfect with any application 
of water, ritually. The symbol is perfect 
in the quality of the act, not in the quan- 
tity of the water. A single crumb of bread, 
a single sip of wine for sacramental pur- 
poses, constitute the material elements of 
the Lord's Supper, as perfectly as the surfeit 
in the Church at Corinth. A single drop 
of water (if necessity so limit the quantity) 



72 Baptism. 

sprinkled ritually on the face of a candidate, 
v/ould answer the end of baptism as per- 
fectly as would all the water of the river 
Jordan, or the ''many waters of Enon." 
But it is better to hold that, where the rite 
can not be administered in due form and ap- 
propriately, the obligation of the ordinance 
(which is only a matter of Church order) 
falls away. 

And so, even though it were true (which it 
is not) that in the beginning Christian bap- 
Form not tism was only by immersion, yet 
obligatory, this ancient usage ought not to 
bind the modern Church to this particular 
mode. Nothing turns on a form. The anal- 
ogy of Christian liberty in other things gives 
liberty of action here. It was so in the Jew- 
ish Church. The law of Moses required 
specifically that the Jews should eat the 
passover standing, girded, sandaled. Yet 
the Jews for three hundred years before 
Christ ate it lying, in conformity with their 
later social customs, at meals. Christ him- 



BuKiED WITH Christ. 73 

self and his apostles ate it so. Did this in- 
fraction of the letter vitiate the memorial ? 
The Lord's Supper was first, and for some 
time, eaten lying, at or after a full meal. 
The Churches now vary from this custom; 
and they vary among themselves. The 
Presbyterians eat it sitting; the Episcopa- 
lians, kneeling; the Lutherans, standing. 
Does this variation from the ancient usage 
vitiate the ordinance ? The gospel is not in 
letter, but in spirit. We all should follow 
the example of the apostles, not in outward 
forms merely, which are nothing, but in the 
spirit of their life and usages. And yet, 
while we insist upon the right of Christian 
liberty in things indifferent, the matter 
before us is, fortunately for the peace of 
some troubled souls, not one of the things 
in which there is occasion for concessions. 
The Church as a whole has always been, and 
is, substantially at one on this subject of the 
form of baptism. It is reasonably certain 
that we now are continuing exactly the 



74 Baptism. 

usage of the Jews, of Christ, of the apostles, 
and of the Christian Church through all 
the ages. 

It is the initiation into Christ, symbolized 
by the ritual use of water, that is of the 

. ,*., « essence of the ordinance; and 

Initiation, ' 

the essential that mects all the formal re- 
thing. quirements of the Church. The 
water, the symbol of the inward washing of 
the Holy Spirit, may be applied in any 
form, but simplest and best by affusion or 
sprinkling. This was the form in the Jew- 
ish Church; and we now know that it was 
certainly the form in the apostolic Church* 
We repeat, that this ritual use of water in 
this form, to express initiation into a new 
faith or condition, was well known to the 
Jews before the Christian era. It was 
adopted by the Baptist as a usage familiar 
to his countrymen; and it was adopted and 
prescribed by Christ himself, as the sym- 
bolic initiation into the new faith which he 
preached. It was an appropriate symbol. 



BuKiED WITH Christ. 75 

Doubtless any ritual ceremony would have 
sufficed as an initiation; it would have an- 
swered all purposes,- so far forth, if Christ 
had adopted the old Greek initiation into 
the Eleusinian Mysteries, as an initiation 
into his Church. But the old Jewish rite 
was simpler, more beautiful, more easily 
perpetuated, of universal applicability; and 
above all, it was suggestive of a glorious 
moral qualification for his kingdom ; it sym- 
bolized the washing of regeneration, and it 
symbolized nothing else. This inward 
washing was the specific significance of 
baptism among the Jews : it is the specific 
and only significance of baptism in the 
Church of Christ. 

But such is not the confession of the im- 
mersionist Churches. The Baptists do not 
have in common any standard b ti t 
Confession of Faith; and no confessions 
confession of any branch of the ^«^«^"^«- 
Baptists within the knowledge of the present 
writer, declares that baptism symbolizes the 



76 Baptism. 

washing of the Holy Spirit; but they all 
look upon the ''believer's baptism" (that 
is, according to their view, his literal im- 
mersion into water) as an emblem (or we 
might almost say a kindergarten object- 
lesson) representing to the eye scenically, 
in the person of the candidate, the literal 
burial and resurrection of our Lord ; but, as 
some say, suggesting at the same time 
"the believer's death to sin and resurrec- 
tion to a new life." But to this general 
confession of the Baptist Church, Doctor 
Conant adds, as his own personal belief, 
that ''baptism is also a recognition of the 
pollution of sin and the sanctifying agency 
of the Spirit as symbolized by the cleansing 
power of the element of water." This 
statement of his belief is awkward ; but it 
is evangelical so far as it goes. But in 
even this meager half-truth Doctor Conant 
stands alone, without any denominational 
creed or following behind him. To us his 
view seems wanting in the essential element 



Buried with Christ. 77 

of the sacrament. In his exposition, though 
he goes beyond his Church, he puts forth, 
as if it were only incidental and subordinate 
in the rite, what all the Churches else of 
Christendom make the one sole significance 
of the rite — that it is the symbol of the 
purification of the Holy Spirit. Baptism in 
water signifies this; it signifies 
nothing else. To all other Chris- sacrament 
tians, baptism is the sacrament ^^ ^^^ "<>'y 
of the Holy Spirit ; and it is not 
the sacrament of the burial and resurrection 
of Christ. But with their view, the Baptists 
have two sacraments, to symbolize two mat- 
ters of objective fact in the last moments 
of Christ (which are however so closely 
united as to be really but one) — the Lord's 
Supper to represent his death, and the bap- 
tism to represent his burial. (Though the 
Baptists do not administer these sacraments 
in their chronological sequence.) But they 
have no sacrament, as have all other Chris- 
tian denominations, to symbolize the office 



78 Baptism. 

and work of the Holy Spirit. The grave 
mistake which the Baptists make in inter- 
preting the sacrament of baptism as a sym- 
bol of the Lord's burial is the result of their 
grave mistake as to the mode of adminis- 
tering this sacrament. Baptism is not an 
immersion ; and it is only on this forced in- 
terpretation that it can be counted as a sym- 
bol of burial. Among the Jews it was the 
inward washing of the Holy Spirit, and 
nothing else, which the rite of baptism sig- 
nified and symbolized; and when Christ 
adopted this rite as the initiatory rite for 
his own Church, years before his death and 
burial, he could have had no other concep- 
tion of it in his own mind or his own plans. 
It was not his own death and burial^ but 
the office of the Spirit that he contemplated. 
It is this inward washing of the Holy Spirit 
that the rite of baptism as taught in the 
New Testament signifies and symbolizes; 
and it does not signify as Chalmers says, 



BuEiED WITH Christ. 79 

"the burial of the Sayior," or as Tillotson 
says, "the believer's death to sin," or as 
Beet says, "their spiritual burial and res- 
urrection," — whatever these things may 
mean. 



PART II. 

BURIED. 

We come now to consider the word 
" Buried," in the much-quoted, but garbled, 
phrases, ''Buried with him hy baptism," 
and ''Buried with him in baptism," taken 
from the apostle's words in the passages 
before us — Komans vi, 4, and Colossians ii, 
12. And we shall then, after our examina- 
tion of the wordy be better able to explain the 
meaning of the entire phrase^ and its place 
in the apostle's exposition of the gospel. 

The authorities whom we quoted before, 

and all who hold with them that Christian 

Burial is not baptism is immersion, think that 

immersion, the words ''hnried with him in 

baptism," not only from the meaning of the. 

word iaptism^ but especially from the mean- 

80 



Buried with Christ. 81 

ing of the word huried^ convey an explicit 
allusion to immersion; and, indeed, that the 
word huried is of itself even a clearer evi- 
dence in favor of immersion than the dis- 
puted word baptism. But the exegetes who 
favor this interpretation have fallen into a 
grave misunderstanding of Paul's words and 
thoughts, both logically and theologically. 
They misconceive the subject of his discus- 
sion, they misinterpret his words, they mis- 
apprehend the connection of his thought. 
Yet this view, which I am compelled to 
characterize thus, has warped their inter- 
pretation of this passage; and imposed on 
the apostle's saying a sense and a sentiment 
that are very far from the apostle's view. 
It is indeed one of the amazing wonders of 
theological exegesis, that an interpretation 
so absolutely baseless as this, so utterly per- 
versive of the apostle's meaning, should 
have ever gotten acceptance in this world 
of thinking men and of theological learning, 
and of evangelical teachings, and should 



82 Baptism. 

have so long held almost nndisputed posses- 
sion of men's minds. 

The passage in Eomans vi, 4, of which 

the words and the meaning have been so 

seriously mistaken, is the central 

Romans . ., _ . ., _ . 

teaches our passagc m the Jipistle, and m 
union with Paul's exposition of "his Gos- 
pel.'^ The one simple, cardinal 
intent of this passage, and of the entire 
paragraph in which it is found, is to declare 
the union of believers and of the world at 
large, en masse^ with Christ in his suffer- 
ings, and death, and burial, and resurrec- 
tion. This is the sum and substance of 
the gospel which Paul preached. It is the 
essential thing; everything else is non- 
essential. And (as we have seen, page 17), 
the reference in this verse to the rite of 
baptism into Christ is not a prominent part 
or feature in the discussion, but is only 
incidental to it, almost as if it were but the 
drapery to the stately statue beneath it. 
The discussion would retain all its signifi- 



Buried with Christ. 83 

cance unimpaired, if the allusion to baptism 
were dropped out. It is our "- '-'burial with 
Christ" — ^that is, in full, our union with 
him on the cross, and in his death, and in 
his grave^ and our resurrection with him to 
a renewal of the right to live — that is the 
fundamental and sole teaching of the 
passage ; and the reference to the fact that 
our formal initiation into him was through 
the rite of baptism into his death is inci- 
dental only, and does not involve any of the 
matters discussed in the verse or in the 
passage at large. Certainly the infinitesi- 
mal question of the mode of administering 
baptism does not lie even on the surface of 
the glorious declaration, either in the sep- 
arate words, or in the sentence as a whole. 
The apostle does not say, or assume, or im- 
ply, by sentence, or phrase, or word, or 
allusion, that "baptism is by immersion;" 
and to import into the words, or into the 
declarations of the verse, or of the passage, 
or of the Epistle, or of the entire New Tes- 



84 Baptism. 

tament, any such microscopic issue as this, 
is to misconceive the subject under discus- 
sion, and to misunderstand the words, and 
to miss the line of thought. 

This erroneous interpretation of the im- 
mersionists finds its popular support, and 
the adherence of even their scholars, in the 
fact that the words as they usually quote 
them, "buried in baptism," dissevered thus 
from the rest of the sentence, seem to have 
" Burled " a ^^^^ meaning. There is, to begin 
vague word, -^ith, a standing vagueness or 
incertitude in their understanding of the 
word "buried,^' when applied to Christ. 
They sometimes think and speak of Christ's 
burial as being literally in the grave) but 
they more often think and speak of it as 
being metaphorically in water. Undoubt- 
edly the former, the literal lurial in the 
grave^ is the apostle's meaning in these 
passages. But the immersionists juggle 
with the word about Chrisfs "burial," 
back and forth from one sense to the other, 



BUKIED WITH ChKIST. 85 

as it suits their immediate need ; yet when 
they speak of our ^^ burial with him/' they 
always^ inconsistently, use the word in the 
sense of our '^buriaP' in water. In times of 
revival we often hear from immersionist pul- 
pits the exhortation ^^ to follow Christ in bap- 
tism, to come and be buried with Christ" — 
language which implies that Christ was 
*' buried in water " and that we, too, must be 
buried in water. 

But this phrase '^buried in baptism,'' 
garbled from the apostle's sentence, and 
constituting their sectarian catch-word, does 
not give us even a glimpse of the apostle's 
real meaning. Indeed, the phrase thus 
quoted strangely travesties his meaning. 
The words are taken from two distinct 
clauses of the sentence, and are arbitra- 
rily joined together. To get the apostle's 
meaning, we must take his sentence as he 
actually wrote it. The fourth verse reads 
thus: "We were buried with him, through 
the baptism into his death," 



86 Baptism. 

On these words, at the hazard of repeti- 
tion from page 7, I add a few exegetical 
notes. 

1. The word baptism does not mean 
water or baptistery; but the ordinance 
" through ^^ (or ^'in") which we were rit- 
ually initiated into Ohrist^s death, 

2. The phrase '^into his death" is not 
construed with the word ^'buried/' so as to 
read "buried-into-his- death, '^ but with the 
word '^ baptism/^ so as to read, " We were 
buried with him, through the baptism-into- 
his-death'^ — that is, "through our initiation 
into a profession of faith in his vicarious 
death." 

3. The word "buried" does not mean 
"immersed" (figuratively, or physically); 
but it means, literally, " laid with him in his 
grave " — the grave of Joseph of Arimathea, 
in which Christ's dead body was laid. 

Let us restate some of these points. 
The word "buried" does not mean "im- 
mersed;" nor is it used, as so confidently 



Buried with Christ. 87 

asserted by the one party, and so unwarily 
conceded by some of the other party, 'Hn 
allusion to the mode of baptism 

_ . _ . , 5 9 rm Restatement. 

as being by immersion. The 
word "buried '" bears no allusion to the mode 
of baptism; and, indeed, it bears no allusion 
to baptism at all. When Paul said, "We 
were buried with him, through the baptism 
into his death, ^^ it was furthest from his line 
of thought to teach, or even to imply, that 
baptism was by immersion; and the word 
'^buried" did not, in even the most distant 
way, suggest to his readers then, that immer- 
sion was the normal mode of baptism. His 
sole thought was, that we, as members (by 
birth and by grace) of Christ's body, having 
died with him on the cross, (constructively, 
a literal and actual death, in his representa- 
tive person), were also laid with him, con- 
structively, in the literal and actual tomb in 
which his dead body was laid. And by our 
being publicly baptized into him, that is, by 
our ritual initiation into his vicarious death, 



88 Baptism. 

we signified to the world our belief in this 
literal union with him. 

PauFs words in these passages must be 
taken literally, not figuratively, or mystically. 
Our burial The word "buried '^ means '' laid 
literal, in the grave /^ not immersed ; and 
'^baptism^^ means an ecclesiastical ordinance, 
or rite; not a fiuid, or the place, or cubic 
space, in which a person may be ^^ buried in 
baptism.'^ It means nothing but the rite, or 
ordinance, which was instituted by Christ, 
and which was duly administered to us by 
his Church, upon our profession of faith. 
And the prepositions in the passages, 
'^Through the baptism into his death ^' 
(Eom. vi, 4), and ''In the baptism" (Col. 
ii, 12), are to be taken, not instrumentally, 
but as meaning simply the formal token of 
our initiation into him; that is, that 
^ through (or in) virtue of the administra- 
tion of baptism, ^^ we were taken and held 
as buried, constructively, with his dead body. , 
It was in this ritual reception of baptism ou 



Buried with Christ. 89 

our part, that our constructiye death with 
Christ, and our burial with him, were sealed 
and ratified to us, and were proclaimed to 
the world. Christ's death and burial were 
historically literal and actual for him ; and 
our death and burial with Mm were equally 
literal and actual for us ; but only construct- 
ively so, as yet. There will come a time 
when they will be actually realized by us 
also. The text in Eomans reads, " We were 
buried [laid in the grave] with Christ, 
through [through virtue of] the rite of bap- 
tism [initiation] into his [vicarious] death ;^' 
and the text in Colossians reads, '^ Ye were 
buried [laid in the grave] with him in [in 
virtue of] the rite of baptism [initiation 
into his death.]" 

The explanation which teaches that the 
words '' buried with him " mean immersion, 
totally misses the point. The Burial not 
error is a fundamental one, both immersion. 
in its historical character and in its theolog- 
ical teachings. It perverts the sense of 



90 Baptism. 

the most important doctrinal statement in 
the Xew Testament, a statement which 
teaches, as no other so clearly, so satisfac- 
torily, the vicarious, substitutionary, death, 
and burial, and resurrection, of the Lord 
Jesus. This is the teaching of these pas- 
sages, their plain teaching, their only teach- 
ing. They teach that he represented the 
race ; we were ideally included with Mm in 
all that he did; we were with him in his 
crucifixion, in his death on the cross, in his 
burial, in his resurrection, in his glorifica- 
tion. 

We repeat and emphasize the saying that 
Christ's death was a literal death, his resur- 
rection a literal resurrection. Such is the 
basis of the gospel scheme. Christ was liter- 
ally dead, and buried ; and all men died with 
him, and were literally and really buried 
with him, yet only constructively. Christ 
literally arose from the grave ; and all men 
literally arose with him, yet only construct- 
ively. Such is the accomplishment of the 



Buried with Christ. 91 

gospel scheme. Both the burial and the 
resurrection were literal and real for both 
parties; historically true for Christ, and 
constructively so for men. The usual 
interpretation of a literal physical death, 
and burial, and resurrection of our death 
Christ ; but of a figurative, spir- "«* mystical. 
itual, mystical, death and resurrection of 
men, is as inconsequent and incongruous as 
it is unreasonable and unscriptural. There 
is no common point of tangency or resem- 
blance. The parallelism betvi^een Christ 
and his members holds only when the words 
are taken in the same identical sense for 
both. This is the key to the otherwise in- 
comprehensible declarations of the apostle 
in this chapter. As Christ was buried liter- 
ally, physically, in the grave; so we, his 
members, were buried with our Head, liter- 
ally, in his grave; yet of course only con- 
structively. As Christ was raised literally, 
physically, not to die again; so we, his 
members, who died with him, and were 



92 Baptism, 

buried with liim, arose with him literally, 

in the same sense in which he arose; not as 

"As Christ ^^^^ f^ncy, to a regenerate life 

so we ;" (for that would not apply to 

literally. qj^^-^^ ^^^^ ,,^^ ;^^_^^ ^^,.^^ ^^^^ 

to a constructively reinaugurated life, now 
made eternally ours through Christ. This 
personal oneness with Christ is the fiction 
of the law, the fiction of the Gospel scheme ; 
yet a fiction that is a triumphant truth. 
This is the only logical, thinkable, tenable, 
meaning of the Gospel scheme. Any other 
is a mere fancy, an idle play on the am- 
biguous, or equiyocal, sense of words. To 
institute any comparison in which the terms 
are not applicable to both parties, in the 
same sense, is only a meaningless jingle of 
words, such as the usual interpretation 
makes out of this passage : ^' As Christ died 
{literally y physically)^ so we died figura- 
tively^ mystically to sin; As Christ rose 
literally, physically; so we rose to a spiritual 
regenerate life*" There is no resemblance 



BUEIED WITH ChEIST. 93 

here, except in the fancy of the word- 
monger. With just as much appropriate- 
ness, that is, with none at all, might we 
run a parallel in our Christian experience 
with any random incident in Christ's secu- 
lar life. For example : As Christ was horn 
of the virgin Mary ; so we should be born of 
water and Spirit. As Christ wore a coat 
without seam; so we should put on the 
wJiole armor of righteousness. This is not 
theology^ it is not piety, it is not good 
sense; it is driyel. But it is not more 
driyeling than the usual interpretation of 
the fourth and fifth verses of this chapter 
in Eomans. 

But this is not the end of our difficulties 
with this interpretation. If, according to 
the immersionist's view, our bur- „ Buried 
ial with Christ is not our literal through 
burial in his grave (though »>«»««'"•" 
only constructively), through our initiation 
into his death; but, as they explain, is our 
actual physical immersion in water, as an 



94 Baptism. 

emblem of Christ^s burial ; and if the word 
^'baptism" does not mean the rite, or cere- 
monial, of initiation, but the water used in 
the rite — why does the apostle in the passage 
in Eomans say, '^We were buried through 
the baptism?" Can he have meant, ''We 
were [physically] immersed through water ?" 
That is not very intelligible in either Greek 
or English. Paul usually means something, 
and usually expresses very clearly just what 
he means. We should have expected him 
to say, '* We were buried into the baptism;'' 
that is (being interpreted in the immersion- 
ist sense), ^^We were immersed with him 
in or into the water. '^ But Paulas phrase 
"buried with him through the baptism into 
his death," if it means something, means 
just this, that we, for whom he died, through 
(through virtue of) the rite of baptism, the 
initiatory ordinance appointed by Christ, 
were joined, conceptually, with Christ in his 
actual burial in the grave, at Calvary. '^ We 
were laid in the grave with him, through our 



Buried with Christ. 95 

having been initiated into his death, the 
vicarious atonement for the race." And, 
further, when in the passage from the Colos- 
sians^ the apostle actually uses this word 
'^m^' C'Ye were buried with Christ w 
baptism'^), if the word ''buried" means 
immersed, and the word '^ baptism^' means 
water, we might understand the sentence so 
far forth in the immersionist sense, ''Ye 
were immersed with him in water;" but 
when the apostle goes on to say, in the 
same sentence, '^Ye were [physically] 
raised li^ the water," we are again puzzled 
to know what he meant. If (as Tillotson, 
and Clarke, and Chalmers, and Beet de- 
clare) he meant to teach both immersion in 
water and emersion from water, why did he 
not say (as these over-sure exegetes inter- 
pret him), "Ye were raised from the 
water ?" Clearly he did not mean that ; and 
therefore did not say it. But with the other, 
the true meaning, in his thought, Paul says^ 
"Ye were buried with Christ in his grave 



96 Baptism. 

[of course conceptually, jet literally], m 
the act of baptism, [that is, in virtue of 
your ritual initiation into his death] ; and 
ye were also, conceptually, raised with him 
[from the grave^ not from the water], in 
virtue of your observance of this same rite 
of baptism/' 

Thus much for the explanation of these 
weighty words of the apostle. We must 
Literal, not take them in their literal sense, 
figurative, not as a figure, or a fancy. We 
were buried mth Christ, where Christ was 
buried; not in the water, but in the tomb 
of Joseph. We were buried with him, 
through our initiation into his death. And 
thus these central passages set forth Christ's 
death as vicarious, and declare our union 
with him in all the points that belonged to 
his atoning work: we were nailed to the 
cross with him, we died with him, we were 
buried with him, we rose with him, we were 
glorified with him. All these things were 



Buried with Cheist. 97 

historically actual to Mm^ by virtue of his 
consecration to this redemptive work; and 
they were equally actual to tts^ though as 
yet only constructively so, by virtue of the 
gospel plan, which holds all men as his 
members. For all men this is a glorious 
fact, not a fancy or a figure of speech. It 
is the fact for all men; though only con- 
structively so, as yet; a legal and evangelical 
fiction, which holds good provisionally, to 
be realized by us in the great future. In 
this great and certain future, the legal fic- 
tion which now makes us sharers con- 
structively in Christ^s death, and resur- 
rection, and glorification, will become a 
tremendous and glorious reality. Con- 
ceptually we died with Christ, and were 
buried with Christ, and arose with Christ; 
but in the great and consummate day of 
the Lord Christ, we shall arise from the 
grave where his body once lay, arise as 
he arose, actually and physically, and live 



98 Baptism. 

with him in our resurrection body for- 
ever.* 

The baptism or ritual initiation into 
Christ, did not effect our oneness with him. 
There was nothing sacramentarian or mag- 
ical in character, in the act of baptism, 
to make us sharers with Christ. Baptism 
simply betokened what was already ours. 
We were baptized, not in order that we 
might become members of Christ's body, 
and sharers in his death and burial, and in 
his resurrection, but because we were already 
members, and already shared in all these 
things. And the baptism, which was 
only the ritual sign and seal of our profes- 
sion, not only signified this, but declared to 



*How strikingly is all this union with. Christ ex- 
pressed by the apostle in another passage: "I have 
been crucified [put to death on the cross] with Christ. 
But it is no longer I that live [in my now dead Adam's 
self], but it is Christ that lives in me [in my now 
Christ-self.] And the life [new lease of existence], 
which I now live in the flesh [in the body], I live by my 
faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave him- 
self [to die] for [instead of] me." (Gal. 11, 20.) 



Buried with Christ. 99 

the world, in formal and public way, that we 
personally assented to this great truth of our 
oneness with Christ, and accepted him as 
our Redeemer. 

But there is another lesson for us in these 
passages in Romans and Colossians, more 
valuable far than that of their ., ^ , 

Not only 

significance ritually; — the lesson ritual, but 
of their momentous significance ^^^"fl^"^^'* 
doctrinally. These passages are rich, almost 
beyond any others in the Bible, in their 
evangelical teaching and implications. The 
gospel teaches that all men belong to Christ, 
by virtue of their creation: '^AU things 
have been created through him, and unto 
him . . . who is the head of the body, 
the Church." And it teaches that all men, 
by virtue of his universal atonement, were 
joined with him, potentially and actually, in 
his vicarious death and burial. All men 
died with him on the cross ; and, as sharers 
in his literal death, were laid with him in 

his literal grave. It is true, not all men yet 
L.of C. 



100 Baptism. 

know this, or confess it; but now, in these 
passages, and most fully in the passage in 
Eomans, the apostle declares that at least 
wBy the professed believers in Christ, who 
consciously recognized him, accepted this 
great fact as our own. ''Through^' and 
^'in^' our ritual initiation into his death, 
we formally and publicly announced our 
faith in all this. We actually and literally 
shared in our own persons (constructively) 
what Christ as our substitute experienced 
in his own person. He died, and was buried, 
and rose again. We died and were buried 
with him, as we declared through our being 
baptized into his death. We were buried 
with him in his grave; and as he literally 
arose from the dead, never to die again, so 
we literally arose with him (constructively, 
but not figuratively, and not mystically), 
reinvested with the eternal life, tJie right to 
le^ which we forfeited in Adam. United 
with him in the sameness with his death and 
burial, we were united with him in the 



BuEiED WITH Christ. 101 

sameness with his resurrection. But what 
Paul here declares true for us^ the avowed 
believers in Christ (of whom alone he is 
now specifically speaking), holds good also 
equally for all men, whether avowed believ- 
ers or not. Paul does not perhaps, verbally 
include other men, here, in the terms of 
this sentence, but he is far from excluding 
them, in fact, from the ample provisions of 
the gospel. Christ's atoning and saving 
work compassed the entire race, every indi- 
vidual of the race. And this wideness of 
the gospel is the great characteristic of 
Paul's teaching. ''As in Adam all die, so 
also in Christ will all be made to live." 
^^In him we live, and move, and are." 

This explanation of these passages, quite 
apart from the vapid, mechanical, exegesis 
usually given them, is neverthe- ^. 
less, the very inmost marrow and the only 

soul of the gospel. It is found explanation. 

in these passages ; and nothing else is found 
here. It is in perfect accord with all the 



102 Baptism. 

teachings of the Scripture. We shared with 
Christ, all of us, in all that he did for us. 
We must stretch out the apostle's words to 
their utmost limit, to reach the limit of his 
concept. This concept takes in all the 
world. Observe the expressive construction 
of the sentence. The language is retro- 
spective, the assertion of one historical fact, 
that is true for all men equally: '^ We were 
buried with him." To this historical fact 
we all look back. We looh hach to our 
death with Christ, and to our burial with 
Christ, as a thing that is past — past certainly 
for all of us who believed in him, and were 
formally baptized into him, but past in the 
same sense equally for all the race. Neither 
the literal baptism (which is only outward 
and symbolic, but not vital or essential), 
nor yet even our personal vital faith in 
Christ, constitutes our title to a share in his 
vicarious death, and burial, and resurrection. 
Our right to a participation in these, lies 
further back than baptism and faith — ^lies in 



Buried with Christ. 103 

our oneness with Christ, the oneness of all 
men with him; and our baptism and faith 
only point our way to this gracious and 
rightful franchise. Christ's death, which 
was substitutionary or representative, was, 
in itself, without any volition on our part, 
potentially the death of all mankind. The 
race, and every individual of the race, past, 
present, and to come, was present ideally in 
Christ^s representative person, and shared 
with him, constructively, in his literal death. 
All men died with Christ, and were buried 
with him, and arose with him, whether be- 
lievers or unbelievers, whether ^^ 
baptized or unbaptized. The 
emphasis here comes on the words '^witli 
himy In Paul's concept of the gospel 
scheme, these words express our personal 
union, the union of all men, with Christ in 
his death, and burial, and resurrection, and 
glorification. Was Christ nailed to the 
cross? Paul says, '^We were nailed to the 
cross [crucified] witli Am." Did he die? 



104 Baptism. 

Paul says, "We died with y^iw." Was lie 
buried (in the tomb of Joseph)? Paul says, 
" We were buried with %im.^°' Was he raised 
from the dead ? Paul says, '' We were raised 
with himy Was he glorified? Paul says, 
"We were glorified with him,^^ And all 
these results came by virtue of our racial 
oneness with him. They came by no volition 
of our own, or by our own seeking, but as 
the normal working out of God's plan for 
the redemption and the salvation of men. 

All these assertions, and many more of the 
same tenor, are found in the apostle^s teach- 

Aii oint to ^^S • ^'^^ ^^^^1 ^^ point in one 

our union direction, that of our union with 

with Christ. Qj^^-g^^ ^^ ^^ hQlong to him: 

"We are Christ's, and Christ is God's." 
The New Testament attests the uncondi- 
tional universality of the atonement of 
Christ, and the unconditional salvability of 
every man in Christ. Listen: "By the 
grace of God, he tasted death for [instead 
of] every man." (Heb. ii, 9.) "If one 



Buried with Christ. 105 

died for [instead of] all^ then all died [con- 
structively with him]." (2 Cor. v, 14.) '' As 
in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all be 
made to live." (1 Cor. xv, 23.) This is 
the large ideal of the gospel, for time and 
for eternity. It works ever and everywhere 
on these magnificent lines. But Paul, in the 
majestic sweep of his faith in Christ, counts 
it as already all accomplished: ''We were 
crucified with him; we died with him; we 
were laid in the grave with him; we were 
raised with him ; we ivere justified with him ; 
we tvere glorified with him." Paul declares 
that Christ's redemptive work was co-exten- 
sive with the ruin of the fall, and even 
exceeded it: ''Where sin abounded, grace 
over abounded." Xo man born of Adam is 
born without an equal share in this redemp- 
tion of the race. And we repeat that every 
man, good and bad, believer and unbeliever, 
baptized and unbaptized, was the purchase 
of Christ's death, the sharer of his burial, 
the sharer, of his resurrection life. We may 



106 Baptism. 

boldly and safely challenge and claim every 
man, everywhere, in Christian and in hea- 
then lands alike, as belonging already to 
Christ. The penal consequences of Adam's 
sin were abolished in Christ for the race. 
And none will fail of the glorious reality, but 
those who deliberately refuse eternal life. 
But when death and the grave shall give up 
their dead, there will yet remain for any who, 
of set purpose, rejected Christ, the penal 
consequences, not of their heredity from 
Adam, but of their own deliberate personal 
sin. The eternal future for every man turns 
on his own personal will. Christ said to the 
Jews who rejected him, ''Ye ^oill not 
come to me [ye refuse to come] that ye may 
have life." (John v, 40.) For such is re- 
served ''the second death." 

The explanation here presented of these 
passages, is the only one that is tenable 
either for the Greek original, or for the 
English translation ; and it is the only expla- 
nation which accords with the constant tenor 



BUKIED WITH ChEIST. 107 

of the New Testament teachings. If the 
exegesis here given of these passages, and of 
the teaching of the New Testament at large, 
is true, then the notion that there is here a 
teaching of immersion or the most distant 
allusion to it, in the word '^buried," falls 
away utterly, finally. It is clear misappre- 
hension of the meaning that leads any 
advocate of immersion to quote these pas- 
sages from the apostle as the Scripture basis 
for his views, or to quote any of the author- 
ities named on page 13, as yielding any sup- 
port to the immersionist interpretation. 

And now, if the conclusion which we have 
reached in the foregoing discussion is valid, 
we are prepared to express the exact thought 
of these passages in more explicit form, be- 
yond the possibility of doubt and of debate, 
and almost beyond the assault of cavil. 
Eomans vi, 3-5: ''Do ye not know that 
we, who were initiated into Christ Jesus, 
were initiated into [a participation in] his 
[vicarious] death? We were laid in the 



108 Baptism. 

grave, therefore, with him, through the in- 
itiation into his death; that just as Christ 
was raised from the dead [brought to life 
again], through the glory [power, (2 Cor. 
xiii;, 4)] of the Father, so also we may walk 
[continue our career] in a renewed grant of 
life. For if we have become united with 
him in the sameness with his death, we shall 
be united with him in the sameness also 
with his resurrection.'^ 

Col. ii, 8-12: " Beware lest any [Judaizer] 
rob you [of your faith in Christ] , . . . be- 
cause in him [not in Moses] ye are complete 
[needing nothing from Jewish circumcision], 
in whom also ye were circumcised [initiated] 
with circumcision not made with hand [that 
is, not physical]^ with the circumcision of 
Christ [in the heart], having been laid in the 
grave with him, in virtue of your initiation 
[into him]; in which, also, ye were raised 
with him [brought to life again], through 
faith. '^ 

Christ prescribed two sacraments as the 



Buried with Christ. 109 

perpetual and sufficient anchorage and safe- 
guards of his visible Church ; and they were 
both worthy of the Founder and of the 
purpose that they serve. One, the baptism, 
the initiatory rite, the symbol of the inward 
washing of the Holy Spirit, is the public 
sign of our profession of faith in Christ, and, 
to the believer^s own consciousness, is the 
seal of the justification which comes from 
faith. The other, the Lord^s Supper, the 
broken bread and the cup of wine, is also the 
sign of our profession of faith in the atone- 
ment of Christ; and it is the symbol which 
declares the Lord^s sacrificial death, until 
his coming again. 



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